


On the Ground Now (Fight 'Til I'm Down)

by OracleOcelot



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Canon Jewish Character, Canonical Character Death, Closeted Character, F/M, Friendship, Gay Male Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiverse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Peter B. Parker Needs to Eat a Vegetable, Peter Benjamin Parker Needs a Break, Post-Canon, References to Depression, Team as Family, but everyone's trying their best okay adulthood is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2019-10-26 09:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17743733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleOcelot/pseuds/OracleOcelot
Summary: Peter Benjamin Parker falls (in love). The multiverse catches him.





	1. Chapter 1

Peter Benjamin Parker never ran from a fight.

“Benji, please, you must leave now.” Felix risked a glance, poking his dark eyes and bright white hair above the bar before ducking back down. “Those goons haven’t broken through the cellar door yet, but they will soon enough. I did a few odd heists for Osborn a few years back, they’ll know me, I can stall them while you take the dumbwaiter up to the top floor—“

“No.” Benjamin opened his revolver. He rolled the cylinder, just to triple-check that it was full.

“As much as it might pain you to restrain yourself for a single minute, now’s not the time to be noble!” Felix hissed. He winced as the walls shook. “The escape tunnel is still under the careful watch of Stacy’s officers. That dumbwaiter is the only way to get out of this blasted joint without getting seen—“

“I’m not leaving without you, cat.”

“Darling,” Felix’s sharp gaze softened. He met his eyes through the goggles and mask. He put a hand on Benjamin’s own. “You know I’ve got my own bag of tricks. I’ll have them dancing a jig for me in no time, but if they see us together, _our_ jig will be up for good.”

He was right. Their adversaries couldn't know that the Black Cat and the Spider-man were associates; the police couldn't catch Felix Hardy and Peter Benjamin Parker leaving a speakeasy rumored to cater to homosexuals, even if it was just days after a raid. One of them had to leave, and he made the most sense.

“Fine.”

Felix sighed with relief. He pulled Benjamin’s mask up just enough to plank a swift kiss. “Go.”

Benjamin pulled his mask down and vaulted over the bar. He crossed the narrow speakeasy. He moved aside a mediocre painted landscape to reveal the dumbwaiter shaft. He looked back at Felix, like he did every time he left a room with him in it. Just in case.

What he and Felix had together was unspoken. It was a warm embrace on a cold, dark night; a companionable cup of coffee in the quiet morning. They had carved something beautiful out of their worn, rough world, and it was something all their own. Before Benjamin had met the other Spiders, he'd kept his partners at a distance, sometimes even anonymous. He thought he couldn’t let himself feel anything, much less love. After meeting them, in that bright, strange, _colorful_ world, he knew that he’d been wrong, and the last six months had only proved it further. He felt it now, looking at his ally, his friend, his lover, ready to face down Osborn’s worst with nothing but a nifty set of knives, a talent for acrobatics, and a sly smile.

“What are you waiting for? Shake a leg already!”

“Felix,” The walls shuddered again. It set off the alarms in Benjamin’s head, but the heavy steel door hadn't caved yet. He needed him to know. “I love you—”

The door exploded open with the awful metal shriek of the Shocker’s weapons. Benjamin started firing shots before the trigger man could step in the room; the bullets wouldn’t get through his armor, but they would slow him down. The men behind Osborn's main goon started shooting, but they couldn't hit much while the Shocker was still blocking the doorway. In the commotion, Felix flipped over the bar in a graceful arc, landing between Benjamin and the dumbwaiter. Benjamin unloaded his last shot; Felix flicked out a wickedly curved throwing knife while he reloaded. It landed square in the middle of the Shocker’s right knuckles, sending sparks and shrieking shockwaves out of the glove. Felix folded himself into the dumbwaiter shaft, shimmying up it as if it were a ladder.

Benjamin hooked a leg and an arm in but kept shooting. He needed to give Felix a head start, and he wanted to disable the Shocker’s other glove while he had the chance. He aimed at the left glove where Felix aimed on the right, but he wasn’t quick enough—he only had his spider-sense as a warning before the Shocker aimed a shot from his remaining monstrosity. Bricks fell from the wall where Benjamin’s head had been less than a second before.

The Shocker's glove whined as it recharged. A bullet grazed Benjamin's arm, but his hold on his gun stayed firm. Benjamin shot the Shocker between the eyes of his armored mask, causing the villain to stumble. Benjamin swiftly considered his options. If he couldn’t get up and out of the dumbwaiter before the Shocker got to it, he would surely die; running to the back door would lead to an easy exit, but it would leave him far too open; fighting Osborn’s cronies in a tight basement would kill him faster than a blast from the Shocker would. The choice was clear.

Benjamin fired his last shot and tucked himself into the dangerously narrow dumbwaiter shaft. He shot a web to the ceiling. The wound on his forearm burned as he pulled down on the web. He launched himself up into the oppressive darkness. He could hear the Shocker approaching at the bottom, but he was so close, if he could just—

His time ran out. A monstrous, vibrating shriek consumed him, filling his ears, his brain, his eyes, his bones. His goggles shattered; he only had the all-encompassing light of the Shocker’s weapon to inform him that the shards had not robbed him of his sight. It felt as though his brain was being squeezed from the outside. He could barely tell his body was there at all.

He lost his grip. He fell.

And fell.

And fell.

 

-

 

Peter B. Parker was having a pretty good day.

MJ’s early-morning meeting got canceled, so they'd met up at a cafe near her agency's office and grabbed a quick breakfast together. When he'd finally showed up to the soul-sucking, under-paying product development lab where he worked, his supervisor had called him into his office, but instead of firing him, he’d kinda-sorta hinted that Peter might have the potential to get promoted soon, which was good because Peter really needed more PTO. Then, one of his grim-faced coworkers had laughed at one of his jokes, which was probably a first, _and_ Peter was able to stop a few muggings on his way home without having to deal with any crap from whoever’s turn it was to play villain-of-the-week.

So yeah, pretty good. Suspiciously good. So good that he picked up ingredients for an actual meal with actual vegetables and other non-pizza nutrients. He even hoped to maybe, just maybe, get to bed by nine.

Peter stacked his grocery bags on one arm while he unlocked his door. His spidey-sense smacked him with a sudden confusing combination of danger and familiarity. A split-second later, something crashed on top of him.

It was big, big enough to completely cover Peter, but not big enough to justify crushing him with the force that it did. It shouldn’t have had the leverage, or the momentum—it was like the thing had fallen off of a building, or something. Peter found some leverage of his own and threw whatever it was off of him. He rolled to a fighting stance. Something moved above him. Peter glanced up just in time to see a dark portal disappear into the ceiling.

For a second he just stood there, wheezing air back into his winded lungs. The thing that maybe-attacked him lay motionless in a dark spot between two hallway lights. The ‘danger’ part of his spidey sense eventually calmed down; all that was left was the familiarity. It kinda reminded him of...

“Noir?”

Peter stepped over the crumpled grocery bags and smushed vegetables. He could see the outline of Noir’s coat, now. He was face down on the crusty carpet.

Peter knelt by Noir’s side. Noir wasn’t moving. Was he even breathing? Peter gripped his shoulder. When Noir didn’t react, he carefully rolled him onto his back.

Peter inhaled sharply. Noir’s goggles were crooked over his face, the lenses so smashed that there were only a few jagged edges to prove they'd existed at all. Noir’s eyes were closed, motionless, and unnervingly human. Peter put two shaking fingers to Noir’s throat, scared of what he might not find.

“Ohthankgod,” Peter released his breath when he felt a pulse. He checked Noir’s chest. His breaths were ragged and strained, but he was breathing. “You’re okay. Oh god, don’t worry, I’ve got you buddy, you’re gonna be okay.”

Peter picked Noir up in an awkward hold. He was taller than Peter and ridiculously built; if it weren’t for his superhuman strength, there’s no way Peter would be able to carry him. Peter cleared a path through the groceries with one foot and juggled Noir into his apartment.

It was worse when Peter took off Noir’s mask. Grayscale bruises ringed both his eyes. Noir’s nose looked broken, but Peter’s immediate concern was the black liquid that dripped from his ears and nostrils. His first, stomach-dropping thought was _symbiote_ , but it was quickly replaced with the much likelier theory _blood._ Peter wiped it off Noir’s face with a few cotton balls of hydrogen peroxide, then got to work setting his nose. Peter couldn’t do much about Noir’s probable concussion—that he’d have to shake off with his own superhuman healing—but he’d had his nose broken enough to consider himself an expert.

Once Noir had a nose full of cotton and a good amount of medical tape over his face, Peter moved on to tape up his ribs and stitched up a bullet wound he’d found on his left arm. By the time he was finished, Peter’s nitrile gloves were covered in black goo. (He kept reminding himself that it was just blood, and he could handle blood, but he'd encountered way too many dark, sticky substances to not have an ongoing mantra of _gross, gross, gross_ running in the background.) Peter took them off in a few clean, efficient movements and dropped them into the trash.

He dropped himself onto the chair next to the couch. Emergency over, Peter looked at Noir, _really_ looked at him, for the first time.

Noir’s face was a monochrome mirror image of his own, which wasn’t totally surprising, but was still just… weird. He looked like he might be in his early thirties, but it was hard to tell. A few grey hairs contrasted against jet black, but he wasn’t sure if that was a sign of age or just the desaturated version of hair color. Noir had a few wrinkles, but they were different from Peter’s: instead of light forehead creases and crow’s feet, deeply embedded frown lines shaded his face into a permanent scowl.

Peter leaned forward. He reached out and gently smoothed the tightness between Noir’s brows. No, the weird thing wasn’t that Noir looked like him. It was the realization that he _was_ him. That Noir, the cool, looming, seemingly invincible figure of the Spiders, was just another broken Peter Parker trying to keep his head above water.

Peter huffed a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. He gave Noir a fond smile. He got up and started gathering the scattered groceries he’d left in the hall. He knew they’d need to worry about the portal and its implications at some point, but for now, he was just glad that the multiverse had thrown at least one of them a lifeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love our Spider-fam. This is the first fic I've written in a very long time. I'm not sure if I'll leave this as a one-shot or build it out, but either way, I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> UPDATE: Let's add a few chapters to this bad boy. Thank you for your support!


	2. Chapter 2

Benjamin’s journey to consciousness was that of an unmoored boat in a storm.

He caught glimpses of the other Spiders: Peni holding a small welding torch, Gwen flying through the air, Miles writing an essay at school, Ham in cartoonish combat. Memories appeared like grainy moving pictures: Uncle Benjamin teaching him to throw a proper punch; playing with the other neighborhood kids in the schoolyard; singing the blessings with Aunt May as she lit the candles, the soft light reflecting in the frosted window. The picture flickered, and it was the same, but wasn’t his May, and it wasn’t him, and it had a mind-numbing heaviness to it that felt different from but not unlike Miles’ world. He drifted, and he was himself again, and Felix was smiling at him, so close in his narrow bed, breathtaking in the morning light. Then he was climbing up the dumbwaiter shaft, listening to what could have been, listening as Felix’s smooth melodic voice failed to sooth the harshness of Osborn’s hired guns, failed to block the bullet that rang out louder than the Shocker’s screeching gloves, louder than Benjamin’s screams of heartbreak and grief and rage. Benjamin reached out for him, but he fell, and the brief impressions of anything that came to him were swept away as soon as he tried to return his focus.

For a moment, he saw the branching, tangled web of the multiverse. Then, the moment ended, and there was only an abyss.

 

-

 

Benjamin blinked awake. He felt strangely unsettled, as if he’d escaped a nightmare that he couldn’t remember. He did his best to brush it off. He had file drawers of nightmares he wished he could forget; most of them happened while he was awake. He’d just be grateful that he wasn’t adding another to the mix.

Besides, he had bigger fish to fry. His body ached as if he’d stepped in the ring with a train; his head felt wrung out, like he’d drank a full bottle of pure rotgut. He was lying prone, in the dark, in a place that certainly wasn’t his own.

After years of getting into tough spots, Benjamin had the life-saving skill of evaluating his environment without alerting any potential enemies. He pushed aside his pain, kept his breathing even, and focused on the situation.

At first, he thought he was restrained, but he found that his arms were just tucked in with a remarkably soft blanket. His nose had been clumsily cast and bandaged by someone with amateur medical experience, but it was nearly healed. He was missing his mask, goggles, coat, and shirt.

The good news: it was unlikely that he’d been arrested or kidnapped. The bad news: his identity was exposed.

Benjamin slowly got to his feet. He moved past the waves of vertigo and nausea. When he bumped into a trash can, he pulled the bandages from his nose and dropped them in it. His head rang with more than just his spider-sense. It was like the ringing echo of a gunshot—

No. It was the after effects of the Shocker. The memories cemented in his mind: His declaration, the shootout, the pain and the fall. Osborn’s sinister forces would be scouring the city for Felix. If they caught him, they would torture him. First to get information on Spider-man, second as revenge for daring to cross them, third because they liked it. The horrible potential flashed behind Benjamin’s eyes: Felix, broken and bloody, the spark gone from his eyes. He needed to help him.

What was going to be a calm, quiet search turned frantic. Benjamin stumbled in the shadows—they didn’t hold shapes in the way they should, and they had an odd look to them, which pointed to brain damage, but that was a worry for later. He thought he might have found his coat, when—

“Noir? ‘S that you?”

A familiar voice. Light.

_Color_.

“...Peter?”

“Hey, big guy, how’re you feeling?” Peter was wearing a short, soft robe that entranced Benjamin with its bright floral print. Half-heartedly tied, it failed to cover Peter’s worn shirt and underwear. Peter yawned, then stretched. Benjamin distantly noticed that his stomach was significantly flatter now than before. The pop of his shoulders and spine was audible. At Benjamin’s gobsmacked silence, he continued. “You had me worried for a second there. Whatever happened to you must’ve been pretty rough.”

“It wasn’t pleasant.” Benjamin was not one to get stumped, but this really had him. “What—? How…?”

“You fell through a portal in the hallway.” Peter replied simply. He shuffled into the tiny attached kitchen and pulled down a mug. He peered into a coffee carafe, swirled it, then poured the old brew into his cup. “Last I heard Doc Ock was working on some crazy science project in Antarctica, and I’m pretty sure Kingpin’s still locked up from when Daredevil toppled his empire a few months ago, so it probably wasn’t them. Anything weird happen on your side?”

For a moment, Benjamin considered telling Peter everything. He thought of telling him about Felix, of his declaration, of facing what he'd thought was certain death. He pictured Peter's face contorting with the reactions of the few strangers who'd seen him and Felix together outside the safety of their apartments or the speakeasy: first the shock, then the distance, then the outright disgust. The vision didn't fit Peter as he knew him, but the potential shook him nonetheless.

Benjamin shook his head. “Nothing too far out of the ordinary. I didn’t see any portals, that’s for certain.”

Apparently, he could face death, but he couldn’t face his counterpart’s judgment. _Coward_.

“Huh.” Peter sipped his cold coffee thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t think you’ve glitched so far. Hopefully that means we’ve got some time to investigate.”

Benjamin nodded, but his chest tightened. No chance of an easy exit, then. Helplessness washed over him at a level that he hadn’t felt since his uncle’s murder. What was he good for if he couldn’t protect the people he loved when they needed him the most?

Benjamin forced himself to take a breath. Before Felix and he became who they were to each other, Benjamin had never managed to catch him. He’d gotten tangled up in his own webs half the times he’d tried. When Felix had first whispered his name in his ear, Benjamin hadn’t been anywhere close to figuring out the Black Cat’s secret identity—which was truly something, since secrets were his bread and butter. All in all, Felix was dangerously cunning and remarkably skilled. Until he found his way back home, Benjamin would have to hope that he’d found his way to safety.

He hadn’t let himself hope for anything in a long, long time.

 

-

 

Peter watched Noir carefully from the other side of the diner booth. The whole brooding, man-of-few-words thing seemed like a core part of Noir’s schtick, but this was something else.

Noir was wearing some of Peter’s brightest clothing, a deep purple shirt and a royal blue hoodie. He’d thought of Noir’s fascination with color and figured it’d cheer him up a bit, but Noir had just pulled them on without any comment. When Peter remembered his eggs had been smashed in the hallway and suggested going out for breakfast, he was met with only a dazed look and a small sound of agreement. Noir had scowled at the menu—mostly the prices—from underneath his hood, but was now just slowly picking away at his omelet.

He’d told himself he wasn’t going to push him. He really wasn’t. Peter had gone through enough bad fights, traumatic events, and plain old depressive episodes in the past few years (and decades) to recognize when someone might need space.

He’d tried distracting him earlier, since that helped him sometimes. Peter had rambled about the more ridiculous bad guys who’d crossed his path in the past six months, some tidbits on modern technology he thought Noir would appreciate, the one time he thought he might’ve seen this universe’s Miles. (From a rooftop near Visions Academy, which he definitely had not Googled to see if it existed and where he totally had not been spending time around lately with the hope of seeing a familiar face, since that would be unhealthy and more than a little creepy. It’d been a Friday, though, so he’d stayed in Brooklyn long enough to make sure maybe-Miles got home safe.) Peter even told Noir about how he and MJ had established a weekly getting-platonically-reacquainted-with-each-other-as-individuals time that eventually grew into a not-a-date-but-getting-there meetup, which two months ago finally blossomed into an okay-yeah-let’s-agree-to-not-see-other-people-and-start-calling-this-a-date-night night.

After a while, it became clear that their conversations were going to continue to be one-sided. Peter chilled out and let Noir brood in peace.

The silence stretched. Noir stared down at the reflection in his coffee cup. Peter stared at Noir. He wondered if he actually healed faster than him or if it was just his added powers of coolness and rough-and-tumble grit.

He had a few (not great, but feasible) ideas on how to get Noir home, but he wanted to make sure Noir was open to it. Noir’s universe sounded, honestly, pretty terrifying. Peter wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to go back right away, but there was a tense numbness to Noir’s onyx eyes that hinted there was more to it than that. There was something that Noir wasn’t telling him. Besides, well, everything.

Peter was suddenly brought back to all the times he’d been silently stuck in his thoughts, with Aunt May, or Mary Jane, or another person who knew him well enough to reach out in his darker moments sitting on the other side of the metaphorical table. For years, he’d thought that he had to protect everyone around him from himself; turns out all he’d really done was push them away. In some ways—in a lot of ways—he was still learning that he couldn’t be an island, but reaching out and actually talking to the people who cared about him had been his first step. Before the multiverse event, he hadn’t taken too many more steps beyond that, but that first step was still important.

The other Spiders had given him the crash course on connection that he’d desperately needed. Now, it was his turn to help them— _all_ of them—by teaching them to avoid his mistakes.

“Okay, look—“ Peter started, just as Noir broke his silence with,

“How could you find love, with lives like ours?”

It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation. Noir’s dark eyes weren’t numb and empty anymore. They were full of rage and pain, carefully controlled, like the precise flame of a gas stovetop.

“Why would you ever expect for anything to work out as you hope? How can you dare even think of protecting the people you care about when at every turn, the world plots to rip them from your grasp?”

Peter flinched. It was pretty obvious that there was an underlying reason for Noir’s interrogation, but it still hit him way too close to home. The same questions had first started haunting him fifteen years ago, after Gwen’s death. (Gwen, this universe’s Gwen, not Spider-woman Gwen. Not the teenager who wore Gwen’s face and shared Gwen’s name but was brilliant and resilient and fiercely unique in her own right. Peter would never really know if he could’ve prevented Gwen’s death, but he knew that he would do anything, _anything_ to keep something like that from ever happening to that kid.) The questions returned after Harry’s death, then after Aunt May’s. They still loomed over his shoulder whenever he was with MJ, though they’d both worked hard to quiet them throughout the years. They never really left him, though. On the tougher nights, he was painfully aware they were there, and that he didn’t have the answers to them.

“...I apologize.” Noir was looking at him with a pained expression. Peter changed his mind; there was no way Noir was older than thirty. “I didn’t—“

“It’s alright,” Peter said, and it was. This wasn’t about him. “What happened, Noir?”

“My…” Noir paused. His pained expression shifted into something carefully neutral. “My close pal and I got cornered. These past few weeks, I’ve been mapping out the trail of Norman Osborn, a downtown mobster. He didn’t like me sniffing around, so he sent his forces to snuff me out. My friend was with me when they finally chased me down. He escaped, but they saw him. He’s got a reputation, and history with Osborn. They know who he is. If they catch him—“ Noir’s gravelly voice wavered. His breath didn’t hitch, but his brief moment of hesitation seemed like the closest he’d get to it. “He told me to run. I didn’t listen. I thought we had time. Now I’m stuck here, and I can’t do squat to help him get out the mess that I got him into. He might be dead, or worse, and it’s all my—”

“Noir. You can’t focus on the what-ifs.” Peter interrupted him softly. “You can’t blame yourself, either. At least, not right now.”

Noir stared at him with a blank stoicism that showed he was one slip away from a breakdown. Peter wondered if it was a Spider-person thing or a Peter Parker thing. He sighed.

“I’m not gonna tell you that everything’s going to be okay, because I don’t know if it will.”

That was another thing he and Noir had in common—they both knew better than to mistake optimism for reality.

“What I do know is that we’re going to figure this out. You got here somehow; there’s gotta be a way to get you back. We’ll find it.” Peter reached out, patting his gloved hand on the other side of the table. “You’re not alone in this, bud.”

“Yeah?” The grim line of Noir’s mouth twitched into something like a smile.

Peter returned it. “Yeah.”

Noir took a breath. For the first time since they’d been there, he looked out the window. His eyes flitted to the moving billboard across the street, the bright taxi driving by. “You’re a scientist, right? You got any ideas on how to build a dimension-hopping doohickey?”

“Sort of.” Peter said. He winced in advance. “Not exactly. But I’ve got a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A good ol' fashioned angst session for ya. Over breakfast, because it's the most important meal of the day. This is definitely going to be more than three chapters. Thanks for your kudos and comments!


	3. Chapter 3

“No, ‘m staying here, and I’m having another drink. And you’re having one with me, flamebrain. It’s Asgarl—Asgardey—from Asgard. You can’t waste that stuff. Superhero rule. Part of the code. It’s too good.”

“I know it is, that’s why _I_ bought it for _my_ birthday. You’re not getting another drop.” Johnny grinned. He rescued the ornate decanter from the sea of tipped over bottles and other wreckage that covered the coffee table. He set it on the mini bar with an exaggerated worshipful movement. He didn’t pour either of them anymore.

Johnny flopped down next to Peter on the cozy leather couch. They shifted around each other, settling in. Johnny put an arm around his shoulders. Peter laid his head on his chest. He closed his eyes with a content sigh.

MJ hadn’t held him like this since before their last fight five months ago, two months before they’d officially finalized their divorce. And Johnny…

“Hey, Johnny?” Peter asked without opening his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

“Love you too, webs.”

“Do you think that…” Peter swallowed a lump in his throat. “Do you think that, ten years ago, if we’d compromised more, and talked more about the big, the, y’know, the important life stuff—“

“—Wow, hold on, I _really_ don’t think you’re in a good place to talk about this right now—“

“—D’you think we’d still be together?”

Johnny sighed. He carded his fingers through Peter’s hair. The apartment was achingly quiet. Finally, he answered. “I don’t know, Pete. I… I don’t think so.”

Peter shuddered with a repressed sob. The room was spinning and blurry when he blinked his eyes open. A few silent tears leaked out; they dripped sideways out of the corner of his eyes, off the bridge of his nose, onto Johnny’s shirt.

For a long time, Peter just lay there, breathing in shaking breaths and clinging to the comfort of Johnny’s excessive body heat. When he spoke again, his voice was a scratchy, watery whisper.

“...Do you think I’ll ever be able to stay together with anyone?”

“I... think you need to get some sleep.” Johnny gently disentangled himself from Peter’s grip. The couch was cold without him. His tone was light and teasing, but it was ruined by his kind, sad smile. He pressed a warm hand to his stubbled jaw. “You could use the rest. You look tired, Peter.”

“Yeah.” Peter sighed solemnly. He leaned into his touch. He closed his eyes. “Yeah, well, I am tired.”

 

-

 

“You really know the fella who owns this building?” Noir asked him with a level of skepticism that was borderline offensive. He shifted his gaze back out the glass elevator, taking in the skyline.

“His sister and brother-in-law are technically the owners, but yeah. He’s my best friend.” Peter said the last statement automatically, but something about it tied a knot in his stomach. He thought back to their series of missed phone calls, the ongoing scheduling issues...

_Whoa_. He and Johnny hadn’t seen each other, not even for a quick team-up, in almost a year.

Oh, _crap—_ Peter slapped a hand to his forehead with cringing horror. They hadn’t seen each other since Johnny’s party.

He’d cried about their breakup of _a full decade ago_ , on Johnny’s _birthday_ , left without saying goodbye, and then just _hadn’t talked to him_ outside of brief text conversations for _months_ , until now, when he needed something? Oh, no. _Oh_ _no._ Peter groaned. He wanted to curl up inside the nearest dumpster. He was a bad friend. He was a _terrible_ friend. What was he _doing?_

Peter dragged his hand down his face. He tried to remember the best ways to escape the Baxter Building VIP elevator without being seen. Noir was staring at him with a level of raised eyebrow that, for him, might count as bewilderment.

Oh. Right.

“It’s, uh, complicated,” Peter told him.

Before he could say any more, the elevator doors opened.

Johnny was right there, poised for action like a particularly worried sun god, with his radiant deep brown skin and bright blond hair.

“Pete, I got your text, are you okay?” He dragged Peter out of the elevator by his shoulders, looking him over. Johnny’s hair had shifted from gold to platinum at the edges, and his laugh lines had deepened, but he looked as good as ever. Peter was suddenly glad he’d decided to shave and put on one of his nicer shirts that morning.

Johnny breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t find any sign of life-threatening injuries or alien diseases. He spotted Noir behind him and immediately groaned.

“Oh, man. _Please_ tell me that’s your clone.”

 

-

 

“Noir, this is—“

The man held out a hand. “—Johnny Storm, Human Torch and People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.”

Storm’s waiting smile was charming, arrogant, entitled; Benjamin held back a sneer. This was a man who was used to wealth and having the best of life fall into his lap because of it. Benjamin had met plenty of upper-class swell-shows like Storm before; most of them caught Benjamin’s fists before they ever caught his name.

“Oh, come on, you can’t seriously still use that. It was like eight years ago.”

“Six years ago, and I’m trying to be a polite member of society and introduce myself here, Petey.”

Benjamin restrained himself long enough to take a second glance. When he did, he found a tired kindness hidden in Storm’s expression that matched Peter’s. The two clearly had the sort of positive—mysterious, but positive—history that couldn’t’ve been built on anything but trust. On top of all that, Storm had a spark to his eyes that matched the light in Felix’s to an uncanny degree—a knowing, teasing glint, like the world was a game and he knew how to play it.

He shook Storm’s hand with a tight grip. “Benjamin Parker.”

“Nice to meet you, Benjamin Parker.” The spark in Storm’s eyes blazed brighter at the name. He flicked Peter a quick, delighted look. “I hope I’ll be able to help you out.”

Peter mouthed _Benjamin?_ at him over Storm’s shoulder. Benjamin gave him a blank stare in response. He’d told him his name when they’d first met; it wasn’t his fault Peter hadn’t figured out he used his middle.

(Besides, he preferred his nickname. _Noir_. Just the thought of it warmed his cold heart. Peni had coined it, and only the Spider-family had ever used it. It made him feel suave, and brave, and loved.)

Storm led them deeper into the building, passing through a short entryway into a massive open space. Benjamin let Peter handle the retelling of the multiverse event and their current predicament while he took in their surroundings. Soft rugs, granite tabletops, and leather lounge furniture sprawled across the dark wood floors; floor-to-ceiling windows made up the far wall, broken only by a glass door that led to a pristine balcony. A cabinet of trophies and a wall of photographs loudly proclaimed that this was a home.

The obvious opulence and distinct lack of cover raised Benjamin’s hackles. He popped the collar of his familiar overcoat and pulled the hood of Peter’s jacket further down his face. He longed for his mask. When they sat down around a dark stone bar in Storm’s massive kitchen, he kept his back to the wall.

Although Peter and Storm started out stilted and distant, they quickly fell into an easy rhythm. Storm kept insisting that his sister, Sue, was the brains of the family, but he clearly had enough know-how to keep up with Peter’s rambling theories. They bounced ideas back and forth, wagging about things like “quantum physics” and “string theory.” They occasionally threw in mutual memories Benjamin had no reference to, such as, “Do you think it could be like The Spot’s portals?” and, “Nah, there’s no way the Negative Zone is involved.”

Benjamin was content to sit back and watch them like it was a game of table tennis. It was fascinating, and not because they were discussing technologies of a distant, alternate future. No, it was because he’d never even considered the idea that Peter might have _friends_.

As the two oldest Spiders, he and Peter had a shared worldliness; Benjamin had always thought that, with it, came a shared loneliness. Outside of his relationship with Felix—Felix was his _everything_ , and ‘friend’ was a part of that—Benjamin had never considered friendship as an option for himself. He knew it was too dangerous, too risky. Despite that knowledge, he always longed for it.

Even if it meant taking away what he’d thought was a commonality between them, he was happy that Peter could have close friendships like this one in his life. Peter’s smile was relaxed and genuine. Some of the ever-present weary tension even dropped out of his shoulders. Clean-shaven and bright-eyed and joking with a pal, it was clear that Peter had grown beyond the broken man Benjamin had first met those few months ago.

Peter and Storm came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to begin the risky task of sending Benjamin home until Storm’s sister returned from a trip in a few days, but that Peter could use the labs in the building to complete any research he needed in the meantime. With that worked out, their conversation stumbled into an awkward pause.

Peter began to say something but hesitated. He gave Benjamin a careful, almost apologetic glance. Benjamin took the hint and became intensely interested in a photograph that sat on the stone counter.

(He didn’t have to pretend. The photograph showed four figures, all different in impossible ways. The brightness of their suits caused the same headache as Peter’s hooded jacket and almost matched parts of his cube. Benjamin tried to remember the— _blue_ , that was it. Also, one of the figures was on fire. He guessed that the Human Torch wasn’t just a flashy nickname.)

Peter took a breath. “Look, Johnny, about your birthday, and the distance in the past year… I know it might not cover it, but I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Peter.” Storm shrugged. “I mean, your timing could’ve been better, and I really wish you’d kept me in the loop, but I knew that you were going through a tough time after the divorce—a  _way_ tougher time than I‘d even realized. I was happy to support you then, and I’m really glad you’re doing better now.” Storm put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. He cracked a soft, knowing smile. “Besides, it’s not like it was anything I hadn’t seen before.”

Storm’s last sentence rang in Benjamin’s mind. He glanced between the two with narrowed eyes. Did he just imply…? He took in Storm’s hand, the tenderness in his gaze.

Benjamin mentally slapped himself. His concern for Felix was clouding his judgment. He was reading into things that were not there, and he was making dangerous assumptions in a situation where couldn’t afford to be anything but objective.

Peter blinked heavily like he was trying to hold back tears. He put his hand over his pal’s. He cleared his throat before croaking out, “Thanks, Johnny.”

Storm and Peter shared a deep, caring look. Benjamin looked away with the sudden realization that he’d been intruding on a private moment. A touching, private moment between close friends.

The moment shattered when Storm leaned into Benjamin’s close proximity with a look that could only be described as smoldering. “You see, your less-attractive double and I were _very_ intimate, physically and emotionally, for a solid few years back in the day, so I—“

“Oh, my _god_.” Peter buried his face in his hands. “Noir’s from the nineteen thirties, jackass. Stop freaking him out.”

“I’m giving him context so he doesn’t feel left out of the conversation—“

“We were having a sincere, heartfelt moment there, and you just—“

Benjamin couldn’t hear their squabbling over the pounding of his own heart. Storm had said it so easily, so pointedly—was he joking? Had he realized Benjamin’s secret, was he just doing this to be cruel?

But... Peter hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t even acted alarmed. Unless Peter was also in on the gag, unless this was some kind of twisted set-up—no. No, he knew intrinsically that Peter wasn’t capable of such a hateful trick. Which meant that it was true. That meant that Storm, and Peter…

Benjamin felt a quiet warmth blossom in his chest. That meant they were like him.

“—Aaand we’re leaving.”

Benjamin jolted out of his thoughts as Peter snagged his coat and quickly dragged him across the apartment.

“Thanks for everything, I’ll start gathering the data for Sue and Reed’s portal gun, I hate you so much, see you for lunch on Thursday, you are the absolute worst, I’m grateful to have you in my life, good _bye_.”

Peter practically shoved Benjamin into the elevator. The doors closed softly behind them. Peter leaned against the glass wall with a deep sigh.

Benjamin allowed himself a silent, hopeful smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Johnny are the ultimate friendly exes, the B in Peter B stands for Bisexual disaster, and Noir can be gay in peace.
> 
>  
> 
> 3/2/19 UPDATE: Congrats to the Spider-Verse on their well-deserved Oscar! 
> 
> Sorry for the unplanned hiatus—Had an important moment of irl personal growth, followed by a Peter B-style week, and now I’ll be traveling. Check back next weekend (March 9th, 10th... ish) for the next chapter. Thank you for all your comments and kudos! Your support seriously means so much to me, and I love you all.


	4. Chapter 4

Felix ran a slim finger diagonally across Benjamin’s face. He traced down from his eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, all the way to his jaw. Benjamin tried his best not to flinch under his scrutiny; he focused on the sensation of Felix’s feather-light touch, instead. Sounds of traffic and conversation drifted through the window.

“You heal fast,” Felix said softly. He cupped the side of Benjamin’s face in his palm. “Impossibly fast. I’ve seen you do it.”

Benjamin felt a dark flush rise to his cheeks. Staring at each other like this, with naked skin to naked skin and their faces only inches apart, suddenly became too much. He turned to the ceiling, though he intertwined Felix’s fingers with his own. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have scars.”

“I know,” Felix huffed. “And with all the ridiculous situations you insist on diving into, I’m shocked there aren’t more. I’d just hate to face whatever cut you deep enough to cause this one.”

The memory landed like a punch to the throat: finding Uncle Benjamin’s rotting corpse, his flesh cut and bones showing and organs missing in such a deliberate act of abomination that it had left him wretching for days. Benjamin barely remembered how he’d burned through the city until he found the man who had murdered him, the creature who had _defiled_ him so despicably, so atrociously.

The Vulture had mocked him with the stench of death on his breath. He’d slashed at him with his knifelike talons, carrying the smug precision of a man and the distant ruthlessness of a feral animal.

Benjamin fought and dodged and got back up again, but he was angry. He got reckless. The Vulture struck, and Benjamin earned an eternal reminder of his mistakes that cut deeper than just to his jawbone. 

When Benjamin had finally stood over Toomes' body, with dark blood dripping into his eyes and the wind stinging the ragged hole in his cheek, he’d thought it was unspeakably unfair that a monster like that got to die from something as simple as a bullet.

“...Benji, come back to me. You’re here. You’re safe. I promise.”

Benjamin blinked. He was back in his room. Back in the present. His scars stung as if it had been days since he’d first earned them rather than years. Felix’s usual debonair was gone from his voice. The concern on his face was palpable.

Benjamin was going to break the tension. He was going to wisecrack about how nothing in their world was safe, especially not for the Black Cat and Spider-man, and as they laughed, the reality behind it would terrify him less. However, when he met Felix’s silver eyes, the words died on his tongue.

In a brief, startling moment, what Felix said was true. Or, at least, it felt that way for now. Tangled together, in his narrow bed, in his tiny room, he was safe.  

 _They_ were safe. Together.

Benjamin brought up their entwined fingers. He pressed a kiss to Felix’s hand. Slowly, softly, he shifted to kiss Felix’s lips. As they breathed each other in, Benjamin closed his eyes and let their own private darkness become his whole world.

 

-

 

Benjamin and Peter walked in matching strides. A few days. That’s what Peter and Storm had figured out, between their jabber and babble. A few days until Storm’s sister returned, bringing her interdimensional knowledge and technology with her, then however long it would take after that.

A few seconds could be the difference between life or death. A few days could be anything.

He wasn’t sure if it was the possibility or the uncertainty that plagued him more.

For a few days, he would have to trust Felix to stay alive and trust Peter to help him reach him. Knowing what he and Peter had in common—knowing that he could be honest with him because of it—made that trust easier, now.

Peter gave Benjamin the sort of side-eye that pretended to be anything but. He seemed to be waiting for Benjamin to say something.

Was he _supposed_ to say something? Benjamin wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Without Felix to guide him, Benjamin had a tough time keeping up with the intricacies of the Twilight Aristocracy at home, much less a universe and almost a century away. Still, Benjamin was decently certain that your best friend and former lover blurting out your intimate history went a little beyond dropping pins.

From Peter’s—and especially Storm’s—casual attitude about their shared past, it seemed Peter’s world was at least a little bit kinder than his own. Given the colorful liveliness of the streets around them, it was easy to believe. The thought added a strengthening layer to Benjamin’s dangerously expanding sense of hope.

“So, um, strategies.” Peter cleared his throat. “Sue and Reed are the real experts, so they’re still Plan A, but in the meantime we should make a Plan B. I’ll check for anomalies around my apartment, then if you can remember where the portal most likely appeared on your end, we could go there and see if there’s any residual energy hanging around. After that, I’ll…”

Peter’s scientific narration lacked the enthusiasm he had before. The look he gave Benjamin seemed to have a new level of resignation and exhaustion. Almost as if… _Oh._

It was comforting to know that Benjamin wasn’t the only one who constantly braced for the worst.

“...and if they sync, then at least we’ll have something to lock onto—“

“Peter. I’m a homosexual.”

Benjamin had never said so out loud before. His senses threw themselves into overdrive, heightening the otherworldly radiance of the street, the sounds of the crowds around them, the breeze against the very-exposed skin of his face. The words hung in the air, free from gravity as if he were held in the breathless arc between one web swing and the next. There was danger, and hope, and freedom there. In those moments, he’d always felt like he was flying. He had to keep going before he stopped himself and dove into a free fall.

“The ‘close friend’ I told you about—the one who’s in danger? His name is Felix Hardy. Felix and I are lovers. He’s clever, and courageous, and kind, though he’d never admit it. I love him, I’m downright head over heels for him, and…”

And Felix had never said it back. He hadn’t had the chance.

He might never again.

The realization stilled Benjamin in his tracks.

He must’ve let something slip on his face. With the warning of a soft “c’mere,” Peter pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.

Benjamin tensed as a reflex—outside of fistfights, he’d always been very careful about who he touched and who touched him—but after the initial shock, he couldn’t help but relax in Peter’s embrace. Somehow, despite the bulk he had on him, Peter managed to wrap his arms over Benjamin’s shoulders. In an intensely strange but comforting way, it reminded him of how Aunt May would hold him after nightmares when he was young. Benjamin hesitated, then wrapped his arms loosely around Peter’s back.

“Noir,” Peter began with fierce warmth. “You are the strongest, bravest, and coolest person I have ever met. I’m so grateful and _so proud_ to know you.”

Benjamin tightened his grip around Peter. A storm of emotions overwhelmed him: fear and pain, appreciation and acceptance and love. He didn’t know what to say. He tucked his chin against Peter’s shoulder and stayed that way until he could pretend that it wasn’t tears that were stinging his eyes.

“Back atcha, Pete.” was his incredibly inadequate response, but it made Peter laugh.

They stepped apart, but Peter held his shoulders. He stared into Benjamin with a look of intense determination in his strange, familiar, not-black-not-red-not-purple eyes. “Like I said, we’ll figure this out. I’ve got a few other ideas—one of them has gotta work. We’ll get you back to him. Trust me on this.”

Benjamin could only give him a shaky nod, but he hoped it was enough.

 

-

 

Noir glanced over his shoulder the entire way back to Peter’s apartment, but there was a lightness to his step that wasn’t there before. For the most part, he went back to his stoic silence, but when they walked close enough to whisper, he broke it. In a series of hushed, excited anecdotes, Peter learned Noir and Felix’s story.

They’d met on one of Felix’s heists. They’d fought each other for weeks. They’d only stopped when Noir realized that the fires Felix started were kindled by debt records and the payoff of his thefts mostly landed in the hands of Hooverville residents. They'd teamed up once on accident, then again on purpose, then a few more times, until one of their escapades ended in Noir’s bed.

“Our partnership became a bit more, uh, _intimate_ after that.”

Peter took the opportunity to shoot Noir an over-the-top suggestive look. Noir got immediately, visibly flustered. Peter grinned. He finally understood why his friends (and former romantic partners, and coworkers, and occasional super-teammates, and Mary Jane, and Aunt May...) teased him when he tried to have conversations like this. It was _fun_ to be the less awkward one, for once.

“Not like that,” Noir shot back quickly. His already-dark blush spread up to his ears, and wow, was it weird to see that in grayscale. “Well, not _just_ like that. We began looking out for one another. We…” Noir paused a moment. His harsh eyes softened. “We became each other’s anchors in a world of chaos and cruelty.”

Noir’s words wouldn’t have been out of place in an over-the-top period drama, but coming from him, they rang genuinely. Peter couldn’t imagine what Noir had gone through in his life—to be honest, he didn’t even want to think about it—but he knew exactly how he felt.

Mary Jane was Peter’s anchor. She always had been. He hoped that, someday, he could re-earn his place as her anchor, too.

They entered the apartment in pensive silence. Noir seemed to be more lost in thought than Peter was. He moved towards Peter’s beat-up thrift store couch and laid down, propping his feet on one arm.

Peter opened the fridge with the vague idea of making a somewhat healthy lunch. When the shelf of unprepared, slightly-smushed ingredients stared back at him, he closed it again. He’d try again later.

Noir was sitting up, his shoulders hunched. The hood of his blue hoodie had fallen, revealing his head of dark hair. He looked like he was staring at something in his lap, but with the couch facing away from him, Peter couldn’t see what. Peter filled two mismatched mugs with water from the sink and walked over.

Noir held his goggles in his hands. He ran one gloved finger along the ragged edge of the broken lens. Peter set the mugs on the recently-acquired coffee table and sat down next to him. Noir didn’t look up.

“These were my uncle’s,” Noir told him distantly.

“Whoa, Noir,” Peter understood the full importance of the goggles immediately. How could he not? “I’m so sorry. I can try to fix them if you want.”

Noir thought about it for a moment.

“No,” he decided. “No, but thank you, Peter. It was bound to happen eventually. I guess this was the time.”

Noir set the broken goggles aside. Not for the first time, Peter wondered how much of Spider-man was built from the shattered remains of Ben Parker.

Peter blinked himself out of that train of thought. He tried to think of something else. 

“Oh man,” the memory came to him with a smile. “I have _got_ to tell you about how Aunt May found out I was bisexual.”

Noir gave a puzzled frown at the new term but seemed to figure it out quickly enough on his own. What a champ. He still paused, eyebrows furrowing.

“Wait—May _knows?_ ”

“Knew,” Peter corrected with a wince. He cleared his throat and tried to brush the grief aside. “But, uh, yeah. She was really great about it, especially since bisexuality wasn’t a widely-known concept back then. She’s—she was always amazing.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she is.” Noir seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He hesitated, then said, “She’s asked me questions before, about relationships. If there are any people I’m going steady with. And she always says it like that— _people._  I’ve wondered… I’ve even thought about telling her, but… I mean, I know she—I know she loves me, but I don’t know if—I don’t want to—It’s too—I can’t—”

“Hey,” Peter put a hand on his knee. “It’s okay. It’s your life, Noir. It’s _okay_.”

Noir’s breath caught at that. His expression gradually resumed his normal grim neutrality. However, when Peter met Noir’s wide, misty eyes, it was clear he was overwhelmed. 

“I’m using your washroom.” Noir informed him gruffly, his voice more than a little choked. He crossed the apartment in two long strides and shut the bathroom door behind him.

Peter let him go. He was very familiar with the emotionally-stabilizing superpower of a good shower cry. As the water began to run, Peter shuffled to the kitchen and got to work chopping some actual vegetables.

Peter also got to work on the finer details of Plan B. He started sauteing the chicken breast, and he started on Plan C. He’d work on Plan D, then E, and even plans way past Z. If one plan failed, there would be another, and after each failure, he and Noir would get up and try again. They would do whatever it took to get Noir home.

Peter hadn’t deserved a second chance with Mary Jane, but somehow, he’d gotten one. He knew he would do anything,  _anything_ , to keep from losing her again. With that same unshakable certainty, Peter knew he would do anything to keep Noir from losing Felix.

In Noir’s world, there were no second chances. Peter wasn’t going to let the multiverse take away the one chance Noir got.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a super weird few weeks, but you know what? We still here, baybee! Seriously, thank you for sticking with me so far and for all your support.
> 
> Extra special thanks to DukeOfQueers for your multiplatform inspiration and encouragement! If you want to see some awesome Noir-focused art, check out his Tumblr here.
> 
> And to the friends reading this chapter who might still be closeted or coming out: Don't let anyone pressure you into coming out when you aren't comfortable and--most importantly--safe. Coming out can be an awesome, empowering, and sometimes necessary experience, but not coming out doesn't make you any less brave or any less "official." (I'm especially looking at you, my fellow bis/pans. You are you, and you are enough.) It doesn't matter if it's to your parents or your friends or yourself from an alternate universe, coming out should be your choice and you should have the right to make it. No matter what you decide in each situation, always remember that there are people in the world who love you, and that, like the Spider-fam, you are not alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Peter rummaged through one of his three remaining cardboard boxes. Noir watched him from his spot against the tiny kitchen counter, quietly annihilating what had been a massive bowl of stir fry. The tense cleanliness with which he was eating it made it pretty clear that he was restraining himself from scarfing it down even faster than he already was. The dirty dishes in the sink and the fact that normal chairs hadn’t made it onto Peter’s Apartment Makeover list added an old-fashioned charm to his politeness.

Noir had been in the shower awhile; his hair was clean but nearly dry. Steam still drifted out of the bathroom beyond the bedroom door, filling the apartment with pleasant humidity and the crisp mintiness of body wash. He’d put on the navy joggers and bright blue socks Peter had set out for him, completing his outfit of color. Despite the slight puffiness that still lingered around his eyes, he looked more relaxed and collected than Peter had seen him in this universe. 

Peter opened the second box. His dimensional-energy-reading gizmo had to be around somewhere… He hadn’t exactly been strategic in his packing when he moved out of his and MJ’s—now just MJ’s—brownstone, but he thought he had everything at least somewhat organized, now.

“Ha!” Peter brandished the scanner triumphantly. He fiddled with the input settings until they (hopefully) picked up any residual energy from the portal that Noir came from. He looked past the tiny screen of the device as something else in the spider-boxes caught his eye. Peter picked it up. “Huh.”

“What’s that?” Noir asked. He scraped the sides of the bowl with his fork.

Peter tilted the mask back and forth, absently watching his reflection warp and change with the movement. White lenses stared up at him, a bright contrast to the black background and dark gray webbing.

“Something I didn’t know I still had,” Peter muttered.

He’d trashed the rest of this particular suit years ago—at the time, it’d brought up way too much of his and Mary Jane’s respective symbiote-related trauma, even if this model had just been normal cloth. 

Looking at it now, though, the grayscale color scheme didn’t hold those memories in the same way anymore—instead, it had a new association.

Peter lifted his gaze. He held out the monochrome mask with a smile. “You feel up to a swing?”

 

-

 

Benjamin led them through the sky with lithe efficiency. In Peter’s mask, his field of vision was wider, the wind against his face sharper. The world moved past him in a blur of color. He ran sideways along walls of sparkling glass, leaped into patches of bright sunlight between buildings. His ribs ached and his eyes watered, but he felt rested, and full, and just so  _ alive _ .

He wasn’t the only one. When Benjamin had first seen Peter swinging in full Spider-man form six months ago, he’d marveled at the man’s acrobatics. Now, it was clear that that performance had been nothing more than the automation of muscle memory. Peter flipped and dove and twisted through the air, moving with an effortless grace that Benjamin knew he could never replicate, no matter how long he was Spider-man. Peter flowed through the city like it was a part of him, as familiar as the blood that moved through his veins. There was a silent joy to his movements that Benjamin hadn’t seen before, and it made relief settle deep within his chest.

The buildings turned from glass and steel to brick and mortar. Benjamin turned his attention to the street, squinting without his glasses. The speakeasy—or rather, the location of the speakeasy in his world—had to be close now. He settled on a rooftop ledge and did his best to look past the colorful awnings and advertisements to the stone beneath. 

This was his neighborhood, and these buildings were from his time, but it had never been more clear that he wasn’t in his city. He knew this block, or he should have known it. Everything was familiar, but not familiar enough, which made it all suddenly, disorientingly strange. His smile gradually dropped.

Benjamin wasn’t a nimrod; he knew he couldn’t expect to find their speakeasy in this world. He didn’t even need to find the speakeasy at all, as long as he could point Peter and his dimensional-energy doohickey in the right spot. He knew that it would be ridiculous to hope for more than that.

Still, Benjamin had expected to find  _ something _ . As logically unsound as it was, the thought that there might not be a dimensional stand-in, nothing to bridge the world where he stood and the world where Felix could be, made him dip into the well of terror that lay beneath the surface of his mind.

The speakeasy wasn’t exactly his home away from home, but it might as well be for Felix. Felix filled in as bartender most weeknights and spent most other nights on the other side of the counter.

(“Everyone needs a reliable alibi,” Felix had explained, but Benjamin knew it was more than that. He’d seen how Felix’s eyes lit up whenever he set foot in the place. He’d felt the way his face had softened as they were able to dance together freely, pressing cheek to cheek.)

“Hey,” Peter called, disrupting his thoughts. He looped around a streetlight and landed next to him. “Something came up on the scanner.”

 

-

 

The scanner was screeching at them, and his spidey sense agreed.

“Yikes. You feel that?” It wasn’t screaming with danger, but it wasn’t exactly nice, either. It was the blurred flare of a broken lens that refused to focus; an off-putting, imperfect overlay.

“It’s… pretty damn strange.” Noir agreed. “It’s coming from there.”

Peter looked where he pointed. It was the kind of luxury mid-rise that every real New Yorker feared. The building was brick, but it paid no respect to the older brick around it. Balconies made of shipping-container-styled steel jutted out of the sides in a way that was probably described as “industrial” and “creative,” but was really code for “unoriginal” and “better start packing now, your whole neighborhood’s rent is about to go sky high.” A bakery filled the storefront at the bottom; the signs in the window were in a tiny typewriter font, leaving a ridiculous amount of blank space around the edges.

The building would have been another unremarkable casualty of gentrification if it weren’t for the dark utility vans that were parked in front of it. Utility vans with a  _ very _ recognizable logo.

Peter sighed. Seriously, was his  _ entire _ life defined by coincidences and poor timing?

“Noir,” Peter said, “Noir, bud. I need to borrow your coat.”

Peter could feel Noir’s confused glare even through the mask. “Why.”

“I didn’t bring any clothes,” Peter explained. “Come on, please?”

Noir shrugged off his signature dark trench. His colorful outfit should have been ridiculous when paired with just the mask, but Noir managed to even make that look cool. He held out the coat but hesitated as Peter reached for it. “I take good care of this coat, you know. I’ve had it for a long time.”

“Yeah, sure, no harm will come to it.” Peter agreed. He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I’m not a complete mess, am I?”

Peter wasn’t expecting a response to that, (and if he had, he would’ve expected a resounding  _ yes _ ,) so he was surprised when Noir gave him a sincere reply.

“No, Peter. You’re not.”

Peter didn’t know what to do with that. His first impulse was to argue. Sure, he’d been working hard to be better in the past few months, but he’d been a total mess for  _ years _ , inside and out. It was his default. The sky was blue; Peter B. Parker’s life was a wreck. 

But… maybe it wasn’t, anymore. Maybe he’d actually done something right this time. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be strong enough to keep going.

Noir was holding out his coat expectantly. Right. Peter pulled it on. It surrounded him with the scent of rain and gunpowder. It was perfect for the unusually chilly spring weather, and it was ridiculously comfortable. Buttoned up, it covered his costume from his neck to his shins. Peter rolled his boots down until they could maybe pass as weird shoes, with the bottom of his costume pretending to be compression leggings or something. After a quick glance around, Peter pulled off his mask and put it in a coat pocket. 

He spread his arms out wide. “Pretty good, huh?”

Noir flipped up his hood and removed his own mask. His monochrome expression was completely deadpan. “You’re a master of disguise.”

“It’s something you learn to perfect over the years.” Peter bragged with exaggerated loftiness. Nothing like some good banter to get him back on his rhythm. He moved to the edge of the roof facing the alley. “Come on. I know how we can get some information.”

 

-

 

The building was cordoned off. A loose guard of people in dark clothing crowded the sidewalk outside, either smoking, drinking coffee, or staring at tiny handheld screens. Benjamin felt exposed without his coat but managed to stay in the shadows. With some minor maneuvering, Benjamin and Peter walked right through the front door.

Outside, the building had felt like two discordant notes that danced around a violent harmony but never reached it. When they stepped inside, it felt almost familiar. The head-aching dissonance was still there, but he could almost make out the conflicting notes. It seemed to affect Peter more than him: the closer they got to the source, the more awkward tension built up in his shoulders.

The bakery was eerily quiet. The glass display counter was empty, save for one jar of scones. Piles of dark bags full of what looked like tripods and some other sort of equipment littered the tables and floor.

Benjamin’s spider-sense directed him downwards; Peter was already moving to a dark hallway in the back corner. In it, there were four doors. Three were made of wood; two were labeled as bathrooms, the third with a coded lock on the handle. The other door was reinforced steel, painted to blend in with the muted colors of the wall. An eye-slider sat front and center, obvious at face level.

“What, do they  _ want _ the cops to find this joint?” Benjamin scoffed. He poked at the sliding eye door. It shifted with his touch; it didn’t even have a lock on it. “Everyone knows you’ve gotta have a door that hides the door.”

“You know that you can sell alcohol legally, right?” Peter asked. “Not every weird-looking door is going to lead to a secret bar. This is probably just some overpriced hipster restaurant. And wait--didn’t Prohibition end in 1933? Isn’t it 1934 for you, now?”

“Prohibition ended six months ago. Just not at the gin joints that I frequent.” Benjamin took a step away from the door.

Peter didn’t realize what Benjamin was doing until he was doing it. “Wait, stop, don’t--!”

The door gave way easily under Benjamin’s kick. It slammed against the concrete wall with a deafening  _ bang _ . “Amateurs didn’t even use a bar bolt.”

“ _ What _ the  _ hell _ , Noir?!” Peter exclaimed. “Ever heard of subtlety?”

“Oh, I know how to be subtle. I also know you don’t put the front door out front unless you want someone to knock.”

Benjamin moved down the staircase he just exposed, senses on high alert. He put up his mitts, bracing for a fight. 

His hands dropped as he reached the bottom landing. The gleaming dark pine bar, the low-hanging lights, the cozy dance floor… His heart surged into his throat. 

“It’s… It’s here.” Benjamin breathed. This was Felix’s speakeasy. It was too clean, and too new, and too colorful, but it was  _ here _ .

“What’s here?” Peter whispered, further up the stairs. With his hand on the railing and his back to the wall, he looked like he wanted to turn back.

Before Benjamin could answer him, his already-active spider-sense flared to his attention. A woman with a hair color so bright he’d only seen it once stormed across the room.

“What happened? Is everyone okay?” Mary Jane Parker asked with confident authority. “Whoever just broke that door better have a very good explanation. This a location, not a set, and-- _ Peter? _ ”

Her face expression shift from professional focus to a combination of concern, worry, and quiet anger. She glanced back at her colleagues. She dropped her voice, but it kept the same intensity. “You need to tell me what’s going on  _ right now _ , and unless there is an emergency that could kill us both  _ at this exact minute, _ I am  _ not _ okay with this situation.”

“Wait, what happened to your…” She quickly looked over Benjamin’s shadowed face, lingering on his eyes, his scar, his skin. Fear flitted through her expression before it was swallowed by grim determination. “Oh. You’re... not him.”

“Not exactly.” Benjamin agreed. 

Mary Jane stepped back, moving into a defensive stance.

“Hey,” Peter scrambled down the stairs. “Hey, MJ, hi. Look, I’m so sorry about… everything. This is Noir, I mean, Benjamin, he’s from another dimension, like that thing with the kid I told you about? Benjamin’s the black-and-white detective guy from the nineteen thirties. He kicked down the door--it was  _ not  _ my idea--because there’s something weird going on here, I don’t know what but I swear, none of this was planned, and I would’ve let you know what was going on, but it just--y’know, there was a portal, and he almost died, and the love of his life is in danger, so we tried to track down the portal energy to here, and I saw the crew out front but I didn’t know if you would be here specifically, and it’s all just… kinda… happened.”

Mary Jane stared Peter down. He wilted under her glare.

“Benjamin, right?” Mary Jane had a well-crafted smile in her voice and on her mouth, but it didn’t get anywhere near her eyes. “Nice to meet you. Can you do me a favor and tell my production staff that they can call it an early day? Peter and I are going to talk about this. Upstairs. Right now.”

“Of course, miss. Ma’am. Mrs. Parker.” Boy did that feel strange to say. Benjamin shifted away from the stairs as smoothly as possible, giving her a wide arc. “And, uh. I’m sorry about the door.”

“It’s Watson.” she corrected him gently, with steel in her voice. “And you aren’t the one who needs to worry about it.”

 

-

 

The tense silence in the bakery’s kitchen suffocated them both. Peter’s head was still ringing with the weird spidey-sense feedback this place was giving off. The combination was beginning to make him nauseous.

“How many times are we going to have this conversation?”

Peter stared at the tile floor. Just like he had when she asked the same question in their brownstone, over two years ago. 

Their last fight before the divorce had started in silence; it had ended in tears and screaming.

Peter hung his head. “I’d hoped that when we’d talked everything out a few months ago, it would be the last time we had to.”

That night had begun with dinner and wine; it had ended in sincere talks and close embrace.

“Yeah.” she sighed. “I’d hoped so too.”

“I should’ve called you. I should’ve called as soon as something happened.”

“Peter, no.” MJ began. “It’s not just about you not calling. It’s about you not  _ trusting _ the people who care about you, not trusting  _ me _ , to help you when you might need it. As soon as you saw my logo, you should’ve called me. Not so you could keep me updated on everything going on in your life--We’re two separate people, with two very different lives. You should’ve called me because, even if it was just by proxy, I was involved in the situation. I should have stayed informed, and I could have  _ helped _ . No doors would’ve been broken.”

“I know that. I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll fix the door, but I know this goes beyond that.” Peter found the courage to try to look her in the eyes. “I’ve been working hard to be better. You’ve given me time, and patience, and more chances than I could have ever hoped for. I love you, and I’m so grateful for that. I’m so grateful that you’ve been willing to let me back into your life.”

“The thing is…” Peter took a breath and held it. God, he was so bad at this. He was so bad at everything. He exhaled slowly. “I want to promise that something like this won’t happen again. But I’ve made so many promises like that, and I’ve broken every single one of them. I don’t think I can do that anymore. I let this situation get ahead of me. I don’t know how to stop situations like this from getting ahead of me in the future. I want to be there for you, but all I can promise is that I’ll try to find a way to do that, that I’ll try to do better next time. And… I know that’s not enough.”

“Hey,” Mary Jane stepped forward. She cupped his jaw in her hand, running her thumb along his cheek. He fell into her deep emerald eyes. “I don’t need you to keep making promises that you aren’t sure you can keep. I’m not perfect either, you know that. I just want us to be honest with each other. Trying is enough for me. Trying is all I ask for. And I know it may not feel like it, but you’ve been trying and succeeding a lot lately. You’ve got a lot of people in your life—me, Johnny, Betty, the other spider-people you told me about, and hell, especially Wade Wilson—a  _ lot  _ of people who care about you and want to support you. You don’t have to try to do it all on your own.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I don’t.” 

Peter tipped forward until their foreheads touched. He closed his eyes. He touched her chin gently with his fingertips. She moved at his touch, angling her face up until he could catch her lips in a light kiss.

Some part of Peter would always wonder how he was lucky enough to kiss Mary Jane Watson. That wonder had increased every single day in the past six months.

Peter grinned against her lips. He couldn’t help it. He leaned back, opening his eyes. “I have to ask, though--does helping my doppelganger from another dimension count as supporting a friend, or is it just an elaborate form of self-help?”

“Hm,” MJ paused with exaggerated consideration. “Both, but only because Benjamin seems like such a gentleman. Speaking of--you said something weird was going on? Something about multiverse portals?”

“Right,” Peter’s eyes widened. “Right, yeah. I matched the energy from where he dropped into my hallway to here. I think this might be where he fell into a portal, or a rift, or something, on his side.”

“Huh. Weird multi-dimensional activity might explain some of the rumors about this place.”

“Rumors?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Mary Jane’s eyes sparkled. “This building is haunted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I present to you the majestic, the magnificent, the marvelous Mary Jane Watson. 
> 
> Hello, everyone! Happy Pride! I'm finally back with another chapter of our boys. Thank you for all of your thoughtful comments and amazing support. I never would have imagined that you would be as passionate about this fic as you are, and I appreciate you all so, so much! 
> 
> This was going to be the final chapter, but it just kept getting longer the more I wrote it, so I split it in two. The next chapter is almost finished and will (actually) be on the way soon.
> 
> UPDATE: Although the final chapter was almost finished at the time of publishing this one, it took a long time and a lot of changes for it to get to a point where I wanted to publish it. I hope the ending will be worth the wait!


	6. Chapter 6

Benjamin sat alone in his would-be usual spot at the polished wood bar. In his world, the speakeasy was always filled with friendly chatter, smooth music, and the clatter of life beyond its small covered windows. Here, it was eerily silent. 

Mary Jane’s colleagues had left shortly after he’d delivered her message. Once they’d realized Peter was involved, they were suspiciously unphased by Mary Jane’s sudden exit. They’d packed up their futuristic film equipment swiftly and methodically as if they had a plan in place for just this sort of situation. With a few nervous glances, they’d left without saying a word.

Benjamin got up, running a hand along the bar as he went. His glove should’ve caught on the various nicks and stains that came with every well-loved drinking spot; instead, it was perfectly smooth. He shoved his hands into the odd front pockets of Peter’s hooded sweatshirt.

A large, would-be-colorless (nothing was truly black-and-white here,) print of people dancing in clothes from his time hung on the opposite wall. When he moved it, there was only blank concrete. He tried not to be disappointed.

He moved into the bar’s small kitchen. Steel appliances lined one wall. The door to the escape tunnel was still there; instead of a passage to an exit point half a block away, it held a staircase that led to the back alley. He left it how he found it.

Benjamin’s spider-sense flared. A loud crash sounded from the bar; he just about jumped out of his skin and instinctively reached for the revolver in his waistband. An indistinct, murmuring voice followed it, setting his nerves even further on edge. He took Peter’s mask out of his pocket and pulled it on. Cautiously, silently, he went to investigate.

He took a chance and looked out around the kitchen doorway. Broken glasses and a spilled bottle of vodka littered the floor. There was no one there, and from his angle, there was hardly anywhere to hide. It did not ease the tension in his mind. He crept along the wall, his senses on high alert.

For a minute, everything was quiet. Too quiet. Benjamin jumped up onto a shadowed corner of the ceiling. He kept a careful eye on both entry points. He waited, until…

_ There. _ His spider-sense directed him to the other side of the bar, where the dumbwaiter would have been in his world. The framed print fell to the floor, seemingly of its own volition. He aimed a wrist, ready to catch the mysterious culprit in webbing, but there was no one to be found.

Instead, a geometric ripple ran through the wall, like a stone thrown into a calm puddle. Colors flashed: bright tones and mid-tones, with a flicker of black-and-white. It was the same sort of atom-shifting ripple that ran through his body six months ago, that had run through Miles’ Brooklyn. He dropped to the floor, his eyes wide.

“—don’t underst—appening with—ing a stronger reading now, bu—two points in one pl—” Distant words jolted in and out of focus through the glitch. “Tab—wareware yarinaosubekidesu...”

The voice that echoed through the wall heightened his worries but warmed his heart. It was garbled and full static, but he would know her anywhere.

“Peni.”

The air was still. If his life wasn’t steeped in strange, Benjamin might have convinced himself he’d imagined it.

His spider-sense rang again. A small spot on the wall crackled with shapes and color. 

“...Noir?!” Peni’s voice filtered through. “Is—at you?”

From what he could tell, her tone was curious, confused, but not fearful. His own fears—Peni trapped, alone, glitching away in some unknown mystical pocket of the multiverse—settled.

“Sure is.” He doubted she could see him, but he took off his mask and smiled anyway. “Is this light show a project of yours?”

“L—ight show? It’s working! Yay!” Peni yelled with delight. The distortion of whatever portal doodad she was working on turned her high-pitched voice into a garbled note. “The fact th—you can hear me shows that it must b—orking well enough that the particles of you—niverse and mine are interacting to transfer sound, but if you’re seeing the multidim—that means that the portal gizmo could actually work!”

“I understood about half of that, and it’s not just because I can’t hear you so well.” He caught the most important part, though. “You’re working on a portal gizmo?”

“H—old on, let m—just—“ 

The walls rippled again. Benjamin caught brief visions in each geometric fractal—a lab full of incomprehensible technology, a small concert hall full of flashing lights, a bolder Brooklyn skyline—at a rate that he could barely comprehend. They stretched farther across the room, reaching into the corners.

Benjamin stepped back before it could reach his boots. “Are you sure that this is—?”

The fractals snapped into a small area, about the size that the dumbwaiter door would have been. For the most part, it was a solid mass of shape and color. Benjamin stared into it for a few moments. The sharp edges of the broken shapes shifted into stars and lines, like an endless game of connect-the-dots. He felt like he was standing with his toes on the edge of a tall roof, his instincts fighting each other inside him, the warning of danger clashing with the innate desire to jump.

“Wow.” When Benjamin inspected it from the side, the portal looked as thin as the edge of a sharpened knife. “This is amazing, kid.”

“I don’t know how long I can keep it stable like this, but we should be able to hear each other more clearly now.” It was as if she were standing right next to him. The portal shifted as she talked, matching the colors of her robot. 

Her clear voice made Benjamin’s heart catch in his throat. When he’d fallen into Miles’ world, glitching and lost, Peni had shown him the first amount of kindness he’d seen in a very long time. In return, he’d made a silent promise that he would do everything he could to ensure that, if no one else, she would survive long enough to see the future she was sure to create. At the time he’d figured that, with her cheery brilliance, she had a better chance at happiness, at  _ life _ , than the rest of the Spiders combined.

When she fell into the bright light of the collider, he’d trusted that she would live her life to the fullest. She was safe, and his job was done; it shouldn’t matter that he would never hear from her again. Every day since, he’d tried and failed to accept that.

“Noir?” Peni called, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here, kiddo,” Benjamin had to clear his throat. “It’s just… good to hear your voice.”

Peni was only quiet for a moment before she erupted in a flow of energy. “I’ve missed you all _ so much! _ I couldn’t just not see everyone again, I mean, we’d all only  _ just _ found out about each other and we had to  _ leave _ \--after I rebuilt SP//DR’s suit, I’ve spent every day trying to build a way for us to all see each other again. It’s been so hard, it took me so long to just recreate the process of the collider, much less get it to the point where we wouldn’t glitch! I was only able to open the first successful portal yesterday, and when that came back with corrupted data, I thought that I might never actually be able to do it.” 

“You did good. Real good.” Noir praised, pride and hope mingling in his chest. “Amazing, actually. I’m proud of ya. And grateful. Peter B’s a real smart guy, but I wasn’t sure how I was gonna get home anytime soon.”

“Wait—home, Peter B… You’re in Peter B’s universe?” Peni exclaimed it more than she asked, her voice shaking with concern, “Are you okay? How did you get there?”

“Well,” Benjamin sighed. “It’s a long story.”

 

-

 

Peter and MJ loitered in the bakery kitchen a bit longer, swapping stories.

Apparently, the staff for the basement bar had reported hearing a disembodied little girl’s voice multiple times; one bartender had even claimed that he’d seen a table flip over on its own. It was spooky stuff, but pretty standard. If it wasn’t for the buzzing in his head, Peter would’ve guessed it was all made up for fun and publicity.

Peter filled MJ in on the events of the past… wow, had it only been around eighteen hours? He added details to his previous tale of the multiverse, jumping in and out whenever he remembered something he’d forgotten to tell her before.

Suddenly, the buzzing of his spidey-sense spiked as his phone rang, startling him and MJ both.

“Johnny,” Peter fumbled and nearly dropped his phone when he hit answer. He held it with his chin. He scrambled to undo the buttons of Noir’s coat. MJ moved to help; he gave her a look that was probably as crazed but hopefully as grateful as he felt. “Johnny, what’s happening, are you okay?”

“ _ Whoa, Pete, I’m totally fine _ ,” Johnny promised.

“Good. It’s just—you know.” Peter breathed a quiet sigh. He tried to push the endless list of old fears from his mind. Johnny didn’t comment on his reaction; he understood. “What’s up?”

“ _ Sue and Reed are back. Apparently, they picked some kind of major dimensional disturbance. It sounded pretty relevant to your whole doppelgänger situation. After they drop off the kids, they’re going to go to the disturbance site, take some readings, and try out their new invention. I’m dropping down on the site right now, though, if you want to meet me… _ ”

Fire flickered outside the wide front window. Peter ended the call. Johnny dropped the last few feet to the ground, his flames licking through his hair as they faded off. The door opened with a quiet chime.

“Oh, hey, so I’m guessing you already know about the—” Johnny brightened with pleasant surprise. “MJ!”

“Hey, hot stuff,” the (stolen) nickname rolled off her tongue with platonic flirtation. She leaned into the two-cheeked air-kisses that Johnny initiated. “Long time no see.”

“Thanks for the invitation to your new project! I read the kit you sent, it looks great.”

“I thought you might like it. The rom-com elements are cheesy on the surface, but they’ve got a lot of depth to them underneath.”

“And you actually got Keanu signed as my love interest? I’ve been wanting to work with him for years! I would’ve signed on right away, it’s just that I switched agents recently—“

“Guys.” Peter interrupted. His spidey-sense still rang in his mind. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to calm it. He’d moved past any awkward feelings about Johnny and MJ’s friendship years ago; the only strangeness in this situation was the realization that, despite not being as close, MJ had probably seen Johnny more often in the past year than Peter had. He’d definitely have to unpack his feelings about all  _ that _ later, but he also knew that, when Johnny and MJ talked shop like this, they could go on for hours. “Sorry, but—dimensional disturbances?”

“Right.” Johnny refocused. “I think we just might have the key to your multiverse problems.”

 

-

 

“...I guess it’s not that long.” Benjamin finished with a shrug. He’d given the spiel so many times now that it clocked in within a few minutes.

“Noir, I had no idea,” Peni said quietly. “When I opened a test portal in your world, I didn’t expect anyone to go through it. You didn’t show up in any of my readings. If you had gotten stuck here, or an unfamiliar dimension, for more than a week…”

“I’d be alright.” Benjamin was quick to assure her. “I haven’t glitched once. Promise.”

“That’s good. But your friend—”

“He’s in danger because of my mistakes, doll. Not yours.”

The panic that had been lying dormant in his mind crept up the back of his neck like an icy chill. Benjamin crossed his arms tight to his chest. The soft fabric of Peter’s colorful sweatshirt wasn’t a substitute for the armor of his coat, but it definitely wasn’t nothing, either.

“So don’t worry about it.” he finished with a tense shrug. “Besides, sounds to me like, if you hadn’t made that portal, we wouldn’t be talking right now. If you know what I mean.”

Peni was silent for a moment. She had to know that she had nothing to feel guilty about. He had to express the gravity of the situation.

“I mean I’d be dead—”

“I know what you meant, Noir!” Peni exclaimed. She sniffled. Her voice was shaking. “You’re okay. I shouldn’t be so—so  _ scared _ by this. We all face danger all the time; we’re Spider-people. But your world… it  _ is _ scary, Noir. There’s more than just supervillains and superheroes. There are Nazis, and death, and there isn’t any color… Are you sure you want to go back?”

Benjamin thought about it for a moment. The darkest questions overwhelmed his mind: What would happen to his world if he left? Did he even make a difference in the face of all the corruption, and hatred, and horror of his world? Or was it all just destined to stretch over his dimension indefinitely, dooming it to become a place consumed by desolation, desperation, and fear? 

Could he face a world like that alone? 

He shook his head. It wasn’t a question if he could or not. It wasn’t a question at all. Alone or not, capable or not, spider-powered _ or not _ , he  _ had _ to keep fighting. It was something that must be done; it was simply the right thing to do. If he couldn’t stare evil in the eye and stand his ground, then no one could. 

His world needed someone who always got back up.

Someone else might need him, too.

“I’m sure,” Benjamin told her. “I need to.”

“Then I’m going to get you home,” Peni replied with determination. The soft beeping and clacking of her keyboard filtered through. The portal flickered on the edges. Her speech moved up to a rapid pace. “The data I got from the first portal is almost unreadable, but if I can clean it up, I can make it work. It will be risky since I don’t know  _ how _ it was corrupted—the variables are infinite, especially with the possible effect of other parts of the multiverse, but I at least know that it went to your universe. 

“It’s also the only data I can use given the timeframe, since if I shut down this portal, it might get corrupted, too. I’d lose all the progress, an—d effectiv—ave to start—ver from memory. It would never b—same. I might not e—be able to m—one again...” her voice became garbled and distant again, as the edges of the portal grew and shrank in waves, “There’s always—chance of—ing a black hole, but if—I can—”

The waves of the portal reached farther, crawling to the ceiling and the floor. The geometric shapes turned jagged until they were more like broken shards of glass. The shards took on different textures and colors, some bright, some dull, some rough. A sound of static rose--when he listened too closely, it sounded like a chorus of muffled voices.

“Peni, kid, I’m not really catching what you’re pitching here,” Benjamin stepped back when one wave of shards got too close. When he glanced at the mirror-like shard by his right boot, startled eyes stared back at him. They were like his, but younger, and with an uncanny depth that he couldn’t fully comprehend. He quickly looked away. “But if it’s too dangerous, it’s too dangerous. We can find another way.”

“Th—could be y—only chance. I’m—the onl—y one who c—fix it!” Peni called out over the growing noise. “I can—t risk—not s—eeing ever—yone again!”

“Peni, wait--!”

“I won—t let you down!”

The fractals flooded the floor and ceiling in a wave; Benjamin hopped onto a bar stool out of pure reflex. The murmuring static grew until the walls were rattling with it. Then, in a blink, the portal snapped into place again, this time twice as large as it was before.

After a moment, Benjamin cautiously dropped back to the ground.

“Peni?” he asked. His voice felt loud in the sudden silence. “You alright, doll?”

The portal shifted back to the two colors he knew best: red and blue. 

Benjamin sighed with relief. His spider-sense screamed.

The room exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming back a month and a half later, and with a cliffhanger?! And ANOTHER additional chapter? What?!?
> 
> Full disclosure, this is the first time I have EVER finished a multi-chapter fic. I have had a ton of fun writing this, and I didn't want it to end! I eventually restructured the ending and took it in a different direction than I originally expected, in a way that is definitely for the better. It took a lot of motivation and help from other fic writers to get to that point. (Massive shoutout to HopelesslyLost for all your time and advice! Lovely readers, if you haven't read Burning Matches, go check it out right now. It is a wild, wonderful story of family, vulnerability, and horror.) 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience and support! You all have been the best part of publishing this fic. In order to stop myself from making any more promises to y'all that I can't keep, I have locked Chapter Seven, the final-final-/actually final/ chapter, into AO3. It will be published on Friday, July 26th, by 7:00 p.m. EDT. I've got a calendar alarm set and everything. In the meantime, I always love and appreciate hearing your thoughts!


	7. Chapter 7

Peter tackled MJ and Johnny to the ground a split second before the windows imploded. 

He was on his feet as soon as the last piece of glass fell to the ground. “Are you okay?”

“We’re okay,” MJ confirmed quickly. A small cut sliced across her left cheekbone. “Go help him, tiger.”

Peter leaped into the air, threw two webs, and slingshotted himself into the basement.

He landed at the bottom of the stairs and immediately jumped back. Had the wall just… glitched? He looked up.

Whoa.

“Well... that’s… probably not a _good_ thing…”

The entire _basement_ was lit up like a high-tech rave. Geometric fractals met with organic-looking fractures, overlapping and fighting and combining on every surface. Sometimes the overlaps formed a visible hole in the space they occupied; sometimes it only formed deceptively harmless light; sometimes they formed something completely different. Stars—or things that looked like stars—hung beyond the glimpses of glitches, stretching endlessly. The fractals and portals spun in a glitching galactic circle around a spot just off the far wall, as if orbiting an invisible sun.

The bar itself was in total disarray—smashed glass had been blown back against the back of the bar; the tables and chairs that were close to the center of the orbit were either in pieces or just plain missing. One pool table held a small portal on top of it; two of its legs stayed on solid ground while the other side slid into a larger portal underneath.

After a moment of heart-pounding panic, Peter spotted a grayscale island in a sea of color. Noir was slumped over a barstool in one of the few solid spots left in the room. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be safe for long.

Peter navigated the shifting environment on pure instinct. He weaved around the spinning portals, jumping from solid spot to solid spot—like “the floor is lava” meets hopscotch, except the floor was probably-inescapable and maybe-lethal holes in multiversal spacetime and also he was on the ceiling. He flipped onto the bar, narrowly missing a small portal right next to his left foot.

Noir was unconscious but seemed relatively fine. Peter hefted him onto one shoulder.

“What the hell...” Noir muttered. 

He weakly resisted the manhandling until, in one sharp movement, he pushed off and fell to the ground, thankfully landing on his feet. Peter grabbed his arm, pulling him away from an oncoming portal just in time.

“Peter.” Noir gripped his forearm back. His eyes were wide with alarm. “It’s Peni. She built a gizmo. Something went wrong. We have to help her.”

The wind picked up, along with the pace of the spin. The solid spot slowly began to shrink.

“We have to get out of here, Noir!” Peter yelled over the rising sound of wind and static. “Peni’s smarter than all of us—she’ll be okay!”

“You don’t _know_ that!” Benjamin screamed back. He broke free of Peter’s grip. A portal lapped at his boot; he only just managed to dance out of the way. “You don’t know that Felix is alive, you don’t know that Peni can solve this—there’s no way to tell if things will be _okay_ at all! You’ve got all this gab on hope, but hope doesn’t mean anything if everyone ends up dead! They could both get killed, and it will be my fault, understand? My mistakes will have cost me both of them, and I can’t—I just can’t let that happen!”

“You think I don’t know how that feels?” Peter demanded. “I _have_ messed up, I _did_ lose people! I would’ve lost _everything_ if Miles and you all hadn’t stopped me! I still spend every second of _every day_ worried that I’m gonna mess up one last time and they’re all gonna be gone. But you _have_ to trust the people you care about to handle themselves and you _have_ to have some sort of hope—there’s no other choice, Noir! It might all go wrong, you might lose everything, but without hope, you’ll just be stuck in that fear forever. You’ll have given up, and you’ll have already lost.”

Peter felt the wind whipping Noir’s coat around his calves; it tore the hood away from Noir’s face. The portals picked up speed, orbiting faster and faster. Noir moved to say something, but stopped, staring across the room in horror. 

Peter turned, following his gaze. The room shifted around the same point on the far wall, but it was spinning faster now, all circling towards a single, tiny point. They circled closer, and closer, until… His stomach dropped.

The portals weren’t orbiting; they were _falling._

“Noir…”

“Yeah. Let’s scram.”

Suddenly, gravity shifted, tossing them into the air. Peter barely gripped the edge of the bar in time. Noir scrambled to hold onto the barstool. He shot a web towards the far wall, but it only got sucked into the center point. Peter held out his left hand; Noir took it. The polished wood shifted and cracked under the force of his right-handed grip. A few rogue portals spread towards them, as if they, too, were trying not to get dragged in. Peter tried to shift away from them, but each dodge came at the expense of his hold on their lifeline—

Peter’s heart froze. MJ stood on the stairs of the speakeasy, shielding her eyes from the brightness. She was in danger just by being there, but she wasn’t in distress. Peter did his best to focus on getting a better grip against the increasing pull. 

“MJ, wait!” Johnny called. “It’s too risky for me to flame on down there, we just need to get this equipment ready—“

“Look at the room, Johnny! It’s not sucking in any of the furniture—it’s only affecting them. I’ll grab Peter, you get Benjamin!”

MJ crossed the room with the precision and grace that came with years of fencing experience and aikido training. She ducked, weaved, and rolled around the floating portals, but wherever she or Johnny stepped, there seemed to be solid ground.

MJ braced behind the bar; Johnny stepped between them and the center point. Johnny got a secure hold around Noir’s waist; with a quick go-ahead from Noir, Peter let him fall sideways into Johnny’s arms. Peter reached up (slash sideways) with his now-free hand, ready to fight against the ever-increasing force to haul himself over the bar. He found himself looking up (slash sideways) at MJ’s outstretched hand.

“Peter. We’ve got this.” her bright green eyes were sharp with worry, but grounded in determination. “I’ve got you.”

Peter met her eyes. He nodded. “I know.”

He took her hand. Together, they found their way to safety.

The solid spot behind the bar was now only as large as the cushioned bartender mat. Peter and Benjamin stayed pressed against the shelves on the side of the portal. The middle shelf immediately dug right into the sore spot of his back. On top of that not-great feeling, Peter felt like he was sitting up and laying down at the same time, and that he was being pressed down in both directions. Every spider-person had a more casual relationship with gravity and other forms of acceleration than the average non-spider person, but this was another level.

“There’s a door to the alley on the back wall of the kitchen.” Noir said, barely audible over the howling wind. “If we can set up enough barriers to get to the doorway, we could—“

A glittering force field erupted from the staircase. 

It didn’t cut through the dimensional portals so much as confuse them; whenever a portal would bump into the shield, it would fizzle out at the edges before changing course. 

“Well, this is a bit more complicated than I expected.” Sue Storm stated, observing the chaos around her with calm interest. She was holding a gizmo that would be a little too much for even the most enthusiastic C-list teen-targeted sci-fi drama. It couldn’t be anything but the Fantastic Four’s newest portal gun. “Hey Peter, MJ.”

“Nice to see you, Sue.” Peter wheezed. He had some trouble breathing; probably because the increasing gravity was inhibiting his blood circulation and collapsing the bottom halves of his lungs. _Great._

“How fascinating!” Reed exclaimed. He held a sleek scanner. He stretched his arms across the room, nearly tying himself up with academic delight. “This object behaves like a very low strength, very specialized black hole—not to mention that all of these smaller portals go to a _different_ parallel universe! Even as an accident, it takes much more advanced technology and no small amount of intelligence to accomplish a feat like this! If I could just—“

“Reed, honey,” Sue interrupted him. “As interesting as I agree this is, I think our friends would appreciate it if we made this situation a little less life-threatening right now.”

“Ah. Right.”

The couple looked over the device in Sue’s hand.

“This many portals must mean that there was a lack of focus, maybe some corrupted data—“

“So if we send a signal through one of the portals, provide guidance, we might be able to direct it back to its intended use—“

“But would it make it through? We don’t even know who sent it, or where it came from—“

“It’s…” Peter had to pause. Wow, was it hard to breathe. And yep, there was the tunnel vision, as expected. He was definitely going to pass out soon. “Peni Parker… She’s a kid in New York… In the year… thirty-one... forty-five… She’s got a… robot... A lot of her tech is in… Japanese…”

“Sounds like Earth one-four-five-twelve.” Reed mused. “It would certainly be a guess, not a concrete fact, but if we changed the—”

“Already on it.”

Sue adjusted a dial. She pointed the device towards the center point. She fired. 

There was light. There was darkness. Then everything was still.

 

-

 

Benjamin breathed. He stared up from his place on the floor. The lights had gone out; the electricity in the whole building might have, too. Daylight filtered into the basement from the open cellar door. Soft patterns danced across the ceiling, like light on an ocean floor.

He slowly sat up. Wincing, he wrapped an arm around his abdomen; his ribs hadn’t recovered as well as he’d thought. Though getting crushed by the unnatural pull of the multiverse probably hadn’t done them any favors. 

Peter put a hand on his shoulder. “Noir, hey. I think you passed out again there for a second; you alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” Benjamin readily gave the usual response. It belatedly dawned on him that he didn’t have to. After a moment of brief hesitation, he gave Peter’s hand a pat of reassurance. “My ribs weren’t exactly appreciative of that last stunt, but they’ll heal.”

“Okay.” The light was dim and gray enough that, for a moment, looking at Peter was like looking in a mirror. He squeezed Benjamin’s shoulder lightly, then let his hand drop. “Just take it easy. Sue and Reed managed to center the portal. We couldn’t connect to Peni, but it looks like she’s figured out what’s going on. She’s shifting the portal’s location now. I’m gonna go help stabilize it. We’re getting you home.”

Peter stood. He moved away, then paused. “Oh. Wait.” 

Peter shrugged off Benjamin’s coat. He folded it with a carefulness that he certainly didn’t apply to his own clothes. He handed it to him. “Almost forgot. I hope I didn’t mess it up.”

“You didn’t,” Benjamin replied, and it felt like a promise. The weight of the familiar fabric calmed his mind. He started tugging off Peter’s sweatshirt in return.

“Keep it.” Peter quickly stopped him. “You need it more than I do. It’ll keep you warm.”

“I…” Benjamin hesitated, one sleeve loose. The comforting hooded sweatshirt had been something he’d been dreading giving up, but Peter had already given him so much; he couldn’t possibly accept more. But Peter’s eyes were sad beyond his smile. This was important to him. Benjamin tugged the sleeve back on. “Thank you. I like the color, and it’s very soft.”

Peter nodded. He vaulted over the bar.

Benjamin gave his ribs a full minute to heal until he attempted to get to his feet. He must have hit his head again at some point—he was slightly dizzy, and the aching ribs only added to the disorientation. Just as he was about to fall to the floor in an embarrassing heap, someone caught his elbow.

“You probably should take it easy, you know.” Mary Jane told him as she helped him to his feet.

“Probably.” Benjamin agreed. He stayed standing anyway.

He looked to the other side of the speakeasy. Johnny kept looking towards them with bored longing but was stuck holding the device as the scientists of the group all looked over it. Peter explained his experience with the collider in Miles’ universe with intense technical detail. The costumed woman and stretching man didn’t miss a beat, making changes and interrupting with equally technical questions. 

Mary Jane watched them intensely, not looking at Benjamin in the careful way that people did while watching someone out of the corners of their eyes.

Benjamin glanced at her directly. He had to squint until his brain could manage the brightness of her hair this close. A cut on her cheekbone stood out in a similar color; they were different shades, but they might still fall into the category of red. It had never crossed his mind that blood, of all things, would be colorful. He supposed it made sense, though. This universe was so vibrant, Miles’ even more so; of course the people living in each world would be colorful inside and out.

Wait. Did _everyone’s_ blood match their hair color?

He realized he was staring. “This all is pretty strange for you, I bet.”

“Meh.” Mary Jane frowned at him with exaggerated disinterest. “I’ve seen stranger.”

He huffed a laugh. They fell into a more companionable silence.

“Who are you going back to?”

The unexpected question made Benjamin immediately tense. “What do you mean.”

“Don’t feel like you have to answer that if it makes you uncomfortable. I’m sure this is strange for you, too.” She replied with an easy shrug. “I’m just curious. Who’s waiting for you, on the other side?”

Benjamin almost took her up on her offer to refuse to answer. But no; he could do this. He tried to push past the familiar icy fear that gripped his heart. When he managed to speak, his voice was just above a gruff whisper. 

“Someone who loves me, I hope.” 

Mary Jane’s eyes brightened, though she hid the change in expression well. She didn’t move any closer, but she shifted towards him. She raised a hand, then dropped it awkwardly to her side. As if she wanted to reassure him, but wasn’t sure if she could on behalf of the person she seemed to assume he was alluding to.

Benjamin didn’t blame her for drawing that conclusion; Peter had surely told her about her counterpart in Miles’ world, and two out of three were decent odds to draw from. He appreciated her kindness, even if it came from a misunderstanding. 

He just hoped that kindness would extend to what he said next. He put a step of distance between them, just in case. Benjamin made himself square his shoulders, hold his chin high. He chased the fear from his tone, even if he couldn’t quite hide it in his eyes. 

“His name is Felix.”

“Oh.” After a brief flutter of mild surprise, he was met with a warm smile. “Good. You shouldn’t have to do everything on your own, either. The people who care about you will support you when you need it. And once Peni figures out how to travel around the multiverse, we’ll be here for you, too.”

“Uh.” The tension dropped from his shoulders. He filled with warm feelings that he could barely parse out, much less know how to deal with. To think that a stranger, one with expectations of him, would be so welcoming and kind… “Thank you, Mary Jane. I’ll—I’ll try to remember that.”

Mary Jane nodded, satisfied. Benjamin couldn’t help but smile.

He’d seen her name once, in his world. It was on a poster for a new club, one closer downtown. She was a singer there. Benjamin was sure that he would never have—would never _want_ —with Mary Jane what Peter had with her, even if he and Felix had never found each other. But maybe, sometime, he would stop in and catch a show.

With an exclamation from Peter and Sue, the portal rippled with the bright shards of shifting reality but kept its form, this time. It flashed between colors until settling onto a normal, soothing black-and-white. Benjamin’s spider-sense faded to a familiar whisper: _home._

 

-

 

Staring at the portal to Noir’s world, Peter realized that he had never seen anything really colorless before. (Besides, of course, Noir himself.) Any light that came from it left no influence on the different tones of its surroundings; there was only bright, less bright, and dark. Everything else in the speakeasy looked fully saturated in contrast, despite the darkness. Shadows weren’t black and gray; they shifted between dark browns, blues, greens. Color was amazing, and it was everywhere. No wonder Noir was so fascinated by it.

He watched Noir examine the portal. It was selfish, and dumb, but he didn’t want him to go. Peter felt like a better person when the other spider-people were around. A better version of himself, someone closer to who he wanted to be. And it was just so _nice,_ having him here. Knowing that there was someone who understood him and what his life was like, how things could go wrong when thrown out of balance. Knowing for sure that one more person he cared about was safe. This was someone who’d helped save his life; and more importantly, who’d helped him enjoy life again. He needed to know that he could return the favor if Noir ever needed it.

Beyond all that, he’d just really, really miss the guy. But he understood.

Peter gestured at the swirling portal. “So, I guess this is… I mean, you know, it’s ready if you…”

“Yeah.” Noir shifted awkwardly. Suddenly, as though diving into cold water, he wrapped his arms around Peter in a warm hug. Noir held him tight, almost too tight, and pressed his chin against his shoulder. “Thank you, Peter. For everything.”

Peter squeezed his eyes tight, returning the embrace. “Of course, Noir. I love you, dude.”

“I love you too.” Noir pulled him tighter for a brief moment, holding onto him like a lifeline. Just as quickly as he’d stepped close, he stepped away.

“Hey,” Peter caught his shoulders before he could get out of reach. “You gonna be okay?”

Peter wasn’t sure what he meant with the question. It could’ve been about the multidimensional trip, the upcoming points in history, the stress and fear faced day-to-day, or the unknown potential of unspeakable grief. He mostly meant everything.

“I’ll, uh. I think I’ll be alright.” Noir’s statement was vague, but there was hope in his voice, and that made Peter believe him. “You?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll be just fine.”

“Good.” Noir quirked a brief, crooked smile. He put a brief hand on Peter’s shoulder, then stepped up to the portal. 

Noir nodded his thanks to the three of the Fantastic Four. He glanced back, one last time. He pulled on his mask. He let himself fall.

The portal sparkled, expanded, then sputtered. Reed flipped the switch. The portal flickered until only a blank gray wall remained.

Peter stared at it. He felt Mary Jane’s hand on his shoulder, Johnny’s warm presence on his other side.

He knew he wasn’t alone.

 

-

 

The landing was better than he expected but wasn’t exactly fun. He landed face-first into the gravel of a rooftop. His borrowed pants were immediately soaked in a puddle. He rolled onto his back. He watched the rain fall from a dark, cloudy sky. He got to his feet.

Benjamin looked out over a quiet skyline of glittering, colorless lights. It was night, here. Apparently different dimensions were also in different time zones. He was on the rooftop of the speakeasy, from the looks of it. He’d trusted Peni and Peter to get him home, and they’d done it. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Noir buttoned his coat, careful to conceal the shirt and sweatshirt that now stood out like a beacon of strange in the darkness of the normal world. He’d need to drop them at his apartment before starting his search—colors were hard to understand and harder to explain, and would only bring violence if they were found by his enemies—but it pained him to waste the time doing it. 

Benjamin swung into action. Rain pelted his face in sharp droplets, both helped and hindered by the breathable fabric of Peter’s mask. It soaked into his hair (in all the hubbub, he’d forgotten his hat, damn it) and chilled him to the bone. He put it out of his mind; he had to strategize. 

He couldn’t ask any of his usual informants about Felix’s whereabouts. It was bad enough they’d been seen together by Osborn’s crew; asking after him would only make things worse. He could ask around out of uniform at the speakeasy, but the folks there wouldn’t know much about what had happened. He could take the newshound approach, pitch the “estranged heir of alleged crime family goes missing” angle to the Bugle and use them as an excuse to go sniffing, but that would put the press and Felix’s family onto Felix’s nighttime activities, so that sure as hell was not an option. Not to mention that if Felix hadn’t been caught by Osborn, if he’d gotten away and was laying low, any attention put on him could only harm him. It was a lose-lose situation, and that was in the best-case scenario.

Benjamin gritted his teeth. He was the best private eye in this town; if anyone could find the Black Cat without leads, without informants, and without a trail, it was him. 

There was no other option. He had to be the one to find him. It had to be him, no matter what. He had to do it on his own.

Benjamin gripped the side of his apartment building easily; he was used to the rain. He inhaled, carefully and deeply, fighting against the pounding of his heart that threatened to quicken his breath.

His thoughts drifted to Peter and MJ. He envied them, but not in the way he’d expected. Of course he wished Felix and he could hold hands in daylight like MJ and Peter could, _of course_ he wished he could tell the world that they were each other’s own, but he’d always known that that wasn’t an option for him. Secret or not, his and Felix’s relationship was _theirs_ , and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. No, what he envied them for was time. He just wanted a _chance_ to become partners with Felix like Peter and MJ were to each other. To know someone, trust someone, for so long. He and Felix had only been in each other’s lives for a few short months, and yet he dreaded a life without him. He wanted time to make mistakes, time to make each other happy, time that they could just spend in each other’s arms.

Now that he was back, every second felt like time that was quickly running out.

Benjamin opened the window of his apartment with a quiet creak. His spider-sense still simmered in the back of his mind. Not enough to make him reach for his revolver, but enough to make him alert. He ducked inside, closing the curtains behind him. The small apartment was quiet. Eerily, hopelessly quiet. He reached up to take off his mask, when—

“—Aagh!”

The rasp of a rappel line. A kick to the chest that sent him reeling. Benjamin barely bounced into a fighting stance when he got his legs knocked out from under him. He grabbed the leg of his attacker in the dark, bringing them down with him. 

They grappled on the floor, Benjamin using his strength, his attacker using speed and agility. They were evenly matched, constantly gaining and losing the upper hand. 

Benjamin landed a decent hit that earned him a jarring punch to his still-healing ribs in return. He rolled out of the way and managed to stagger back to his feet, his attacker doing the same, and _why in the damned hell wasn’t his spider-sense working?!_

_Snck._  

The cold sound of a switchblade heightened the stakes. Wait—multiple switchblades, all at once. But no, that couldn’t be right. He was sure there was only one other person in the apartment, it couldn’t be— It _had_ to be—

It was the sound of spring-loaded claws.

Hope flooded Benjamin’s chest. Tears pricked his eyes.

“Felix,” Benjamin breathed, choking with relief. “Oh god, Felix. Cat, it’s me.”

“...Benji?”

Felix lit the incandescent desk lamp, illuminating them both. The clawed gloves dropped to the floor with a soft _clink_.

Benjamin pulled off his new mask. He gave Felix a watery smile. “Hey, fella.”

In a quick, graceful movement, Felix was in front of him, holding Benjamin’s jaw between his palms. He tilted his face one way, then another, looking him over.

“I was on the top floor. I heard the Shocker fire in the dumbwaiter, and when you didn’t come out…” Felix’s piercing gray eyes held an edge of fragile vulnerability that Benjamin hadn’t seen before. They were ringed by dark circles. Strands of bright hair fell across his forehead, free from their usual careful pomade. He looked beyond exhausted. “I thought you were dead, Benji. I thought they’d killed you.”

“Not this time.” 

Benjamin pulled Felix close. He buried his face in his neck, breathing in the reality that they were here, alive, together. Felix held tight to him and shook with quiet sobs, which alone shook Benjamin to his core. For all his flirtation and wit, Felix was never one for intense displays of emotion.

“I’m here,” Benjamin whispered. He pressed a kiss to Felix’s tearstained cheek. “I’m okay. I was so worried about you. I love you. It’s, uh, it’s okay if you can’t say it, I just wanted you to—”

“I love you too, Peter Benjamin Parker.” Felix breathed, filling Benjamin’s heart past the brim. He stared into him with his soft, stormy eyes. He ran a thumb along his cheekbone. “I was afraid that I’d missed all my chances to tell you that.”

Benjamin pressed another kiss to Felix’s lips. He felt warm, and safe, and like he just might be able to stay that way forever. He pulled back, trying to convey his feelings to Felix through his eyes alone. Felix gave him a quiet smile, knowing everything, as usual. Felix moved his hand to the back of his neck, carding his fingers into his hair. He pulled Benjamin towards him, locking their lips together in a dance of push and pull that expressed everything words couldn’t.

When their kissing began to move to undressing, Felix fluttered his eyes open. He frowned, his eyes narrowing.

“Wait,” he stepped back. He looked Benjamin over. He blinked and tried again, apparently to the same result. “Wait…”

He began to say something once, then twice, never taking his eyes off of Benjamin’s borrowed outfit.

“What happened...? Where did…? What are you _wearing?_ ” Felix sputtered. He rubbed his eyes. Finally, he exclaimed, “How are your clothes _doing that!”_

Benjamin cracked into a wide smile. “I think it’s about time I told you about my family.”

They sat down on the bed together. Benjamin started from the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have reached a happy ending! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed writing this. Life changed a lot during the course of it, for the better and the weirder. Maybe the end of this fic will be the start of a new habit of writing on AO3. I’ve got a few ideas, but we’ll have to see. I hope it will!
> 
> I can’t thank you enough for your thoughtful comments and wonderful support throughout the last few (many) months! I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride, and I wish you all the best in the future!


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